John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

The saints will praise Christ forever for redemption by the blood (Rev. 5:8-10). - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 256]

Don't think of Heaven as a ghostly, unreal, indefinite state. It is a real place, a place as literal and concrete as the house you sit in today, as physically real as the city where you live. ― John R. Rice, Bible Facts About Heaven

The stubborn blindness of the apostles was because they had a preconceived idea of the kingdom without crucifixion. They did not know about Christ's second coming, so did not see how He could have a kingdom if He died. Beware, reader, less preconceived opinion blinds you to the plain statements of the Bible. The highest and best truth, repeated again and again by the Saviour, cannot be comprehended by those who have their minds made up. So multitudes of good men are utterly ignorant about the second coming of Christ so plainly and literally foretold, of His reign on earth, and of kindred truths. So multitudes who think of salvation by works cannot conceive of the eternal security of a Christian and a salvation wholly of grace, though the Scriptures are full of statements that prove them. - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 309]

No part of the Bible really contradicts any other part. There are no mistakes in the Word of God. If there seems to be, then the seeming so is only because of our ignorance or unbelief. In so many incidents in these thousands of years the Word of God has so proved itself infallibly correct that it would be folly now to have a doubt because in some few cases our ignorance leaves us in the dark. - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 314-315]

Jesus won the woman at the well while the disciples wondered why He talked with her (John 4, especially vs. 27). When they were absorbed in food, Jesus would not eat, but had His eyes on the throng coming out of the city and begged them to lift up their eyes and look on the harvest (John 4:31-35). The disciples would have sent the Canaanite woman away with her poor helpless daughter still possessed with a devil (Matt. 15:23), but Jesus was better than the disciples. Today He is better than Christians. He is better than we preachers. Praise His name, He always cares for the troubled, the sinning, the beggars who want mercy! Hallelujah, what a Saviour! - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 317]

Parables are simply illustrations. Jesus originated His own. He probably told the same parable repeatedly to different crowds and on different occasions, varying it to suit the occasion, just as preachers today repeat sermons upon the same subjects and vary them as occasion requires. Jesus did so much teaching that not all of it could be given in any one of the Gospels nor in all of them (John 20:30, 31; 21:25). - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 333]